Marco van Ginkel during his time at PSV (Image: Aaron van Zandvoort/Soccrates/Getty Images)

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PSV Eindhoven, their 24th Eredivisie title secured three weeks previous, had rounded out the campaign with a 0-0 draw at home to Groningen and the on-loan Chelsea midfielder was the first to lift the trophy on a sun-kissed afternoon at Philips Stadion.

He had been made captain by Phillip Cocu despite only signing temporarily for a second spell and during the celebrations gave a speech to the PSV fans who had been campaigning for weeks that their club should make him a permanent acquisition.

He found the net 16 times from the right of a midfield three that had lost Davy Propper to Brighton & Hove Albion and after a couple of difficult years things were looking up for the man who arrived at Chelsea in July 2013 and was billed as the next Frank Lampard.

Van Ginkel, now 27, has not kicked a ball competitively since.

Van Ginkel's last touch: losing possession before fouling the Groningen left back Amir Absalem in the 89th minute two years ago today.

A few weeks later a brief statement appeared on Chelsea's website.

“Marco van Ginkel has undergone a procedure relating to the revision reconstruction of his anterior cruciate ligament and treatment of chondral damage in his knee,” it read. “The expected recovery time is approximately eight months.”

Eight has become 24, one setback has rolled into another, and although he had made a return to the training pitches at Cobham before football was put on hold, his contract runs out next month and there is no prospect of an extension.

“I have no idea what is going to happen. Chelsea should let me know what it plans to do next month. I’ll call them in a few weeks," Van Ginkel said in an interview with Voetbal International last month.

“No, seriously, I don’t know. Due to the current crisis, it may just be that a lot is changing in terms of contracts and salaries in football. These are uncertain times for many people. We’ll just wait and see.

"They can also think; we have invested a lot in that boy and now he is finally fit. Let’s keep him.”

The chances of that happening is very slim, so what next?

Premier League offers seem unlikely but he will be coveted at home.

The problem is no one can be sure what level he can reach after so long out and there will forever be questions over recurrence.

He has been troubled with knee injuries ever since a meniscus tear while at Vitesse Arnhem in 2011, although it was the torn cruciate ligament in just his second Chelsea start that really accelerated the issues

It happened following a challenge from Alex Pritchard in the opening minutes of a 2-0 League Cup win against Swindon Town that is better remembered for Jose Mourinho selecting a team worth £180million.

Van Ginkel was fit again by the end of the campaign and endured a frustrating loan at Milan the following season, in the No21 shirt previously worn by Andrea Pirlo. An ankle injury had disrupted his autumn and he found it hard to get back into manager Filipo Inzaghi’s plans until a run of games towards the end of the campaign.

From there he went to a struggling Stoke side as part of the deal that sent Asmir Begovic to Stamford Bridge but lost his place within two months and had the loan cancelled in early February before heading for PSV until the end of the season.

In Eindhoven he found a semblance of form alongside Propper and scored eight times to help them to the title. That fired talk of a return the following year but he then revealed in an Instagram post that his knee had been causing irritation and he faced a spell out.

But in December 2016 he signed a new three-year deal and returned to Eindhoven for the rest of the campaign, an agreement eventually extended to 2017-18.

There has been plenty of sympathy at Chelsea throughout his ordeal but it makes no sense to gamble on giving him a new deal.

Lampard has not mentioned the eight-time Dutch international in any great detail since being asked about his fitness in September.

At that point the head coach said: “Unfortunately, he has had some complications with knee surgery. I feel for him. I was here when he was a player here and those injuries began.

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“He is a talented boy with a really good attitude. He is going to be out for a while and I don’t want to put a time frame on the injury that he has got. We will leave him to do his rehab, which he has been doing diligently on a daily basis.”

The rehab had progressed to the extent that he was working through basic drills and able to run pain free pre-lockdown.

But fulfilling the potential that led to comparisons with Chelsea’s now head coach, from Mourinho among others, is a moonshot. After so long out stepping into a competitive arena again should be considered a success for a player whose misfortune has known no bounds.